European and American crude oil futures closed slightly higher, but concerns about global oversupply persist, and oil prices are still within the range of decline. On Thursday (June 22), the settlement price of West Texas Light Oil futures for August 2017 on the New York Mercantile Exchange was $42.74 per barrel, an increase of $0.21 or 0.5% from the previous trading day, with a trading range of $42.26 to $43.32; The August 2017 futures settlement price of Brent crude oil on the London Intercontinental Exchange was $45.22 per barrel, an increase of $0.40 or 0.9% from the previous trading day, with a trading range of $44.53 to $45.79.

The Wall Street Journal quoted analysts as saying that there was no new information on Thursday that could affect oil prices, and a slight rebound in oil prices is unlikely to be any sign of a turning point. Concerns about global oversupply persist, and oil prices are still within the range of decline. The severe surplus of gasoline inventory in the United States has led to the lowest demand for Colonial pipeline gasoline in six years. Reuters reported in a report that even if the oil price drops below $40 per barrel, US shale oil production can still profit, resulting in a sustained increase in US crude oil production. However, low oil prices may once again support US gasoline demand. The American Automobile Association (AAA) predicts that 37.5 million people will travel more than 80 kilometers by car during the Independence Day holiday from June 30 to July 4. AAA stated that this will break the record of 36.5 million people set last year, marking the fourth consecutive year of increased car travel during the Independence Day holiday.

According to data from Genscape, an oil monitoring service, the European ARA (Amsterdam Rotterdam Antwerp) oil inventory reached 64.2 million barrels in the week ending June 16th, the highest level in a year. However, Iraq's oil minister, Al Rouaibi, stated that oil prices will begin to rebound at the end of July and reach $54-56 per barrel by the end of the year.

Tropical Storm Cindy interrupted some oil and gas production in the US Gulf region, which accounts for approximately 17% of US crude oil production and 5% of US natural gas production. However, the tropical storm is weakening, although rainstorm still threatens the Gulf Coast of the United States. Although OPEC and some non OPEC countries are attempting to establish a global oil supply and demand balance by reducing production to push up oil prices, due to the resumption of growth in crude oil production in Libya and Nigeria after severe damage in recent years, it can be seen that the OPEC led reduction in production is not enough to reduce global oil inventories. Reuters believes that on May 25th, OPEC and some non OPEC countries unanimously agreed to extend the agreement to reduce production by 1.8 million barrels per day until March 2018, with the original agreement ending on June 30th. But so far, the growing crude oil production in the United States has dampened OPEC's efforts to reduce global oil inventories to the average level of the past five years. Last week, US crude oil production reached 9.34 million barrels per day, the highest level since August 2015.

Deutsche Bank analyst Carsten Fritsch said that US oil inventories will decrease seasonally during the summer, but will still be higher than the average level of the past five years. OPEC has decided to extend the agreement by 9 months on the basis of the original production reduction. Although OPEC strictly adheres to the production reduction agreement, it has not further reduced production, making it difficult to reduce excess inventory. In 2014, oil prices rose to over $100 per barrel, leading to an increase in drilling platforms by US shale oil producers. Analysts surveyed by Reuters believe that OPEC is in danger of further losing its market to US shale oil producers, which could lead to a decrease in the fulfillment rate of production reduction agreements in the second half of this year.

Abhishek Kumar, Senior Energy Analyst for Global Natural Gas Analysis at Interfax Energy News, believes that "countries that have signed agreements have failed to deepen their production cuts, and the degree of market rebalancing will depend on the US oil production profile. He said," The growth of US shale oil production remains a real threat to OPEC and non OPEC countries participating in production cuts, potentially weakening most of their production gains Analysts believe that in addition to the increase in shale oil production, the increase in supply in Nigeria and Libya also increases the risk to the crude oil market. These two countries are OPEC member states exempt from production reduction responsibilities. However, the high seasonal demand in the second half of 2017 may lead to a significant decrease in inventory, bringing the market closer to equilibrium. Norbert Ruecker, head of macro and commodity research at Swiss bank Baxter, believes that "demand growth will be the main factor in alleviating global oil market surplus, but overall the slowdown is slower than expected